nate true time fountain

By David Ponce

Put some fluorescent dye in water. Then feed it through a precise, micro-controlled pump so as to get a very regular stream of drops from the top of your apparatus. Then, turn the blacklight on, and start your strobelight. What you’ve just created is called The Time Fountain, and happens to be one of the trippiest DIY projects we’ve ever come across.

It’s the brainchild of one Nate True, and what you’re able to do with this project will simply amaze you. By regulating the strobe’s frequency, you’re able to freeze a drop of water in mid-air, and interact with it; break it up and such. You can slow the drip down, or even better, reverse it, hence the name: in reverse, it looks like your fountain is going back in time.

Of course, there’s a video. So come right in.

[Nate True’s Time Fountain] VIA [TechEBlog]

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46 COMMENTS

  3. Umm…

    Harold Edgerton invented this technique at MIT at least 50 years ago. If people think this is cool they should look at some of his other work.

    This is nothing new.

  5. I believe that Edgerton specialized in high speed photagraphy. A similar look, but totally different in process. This looks to be taken with a regular speed camera.

  10. This shows why you cant have flourescent lights around moving machinery (like a printing press). The strobing of the flourescent can make moving parts appear stationery……

  19. I’m a stupid chump! Apparently someone’s discoveered how to freely manipulate physics and used it to make a fountain with LED lights! I wanna buiy one now!

  21. Geez, some of you are the most cynical jackasses I’ve ever seen. Just because something is based off an idea that has “been around for decades” doesn’t mean it isn’t still cool to watch.

    STFU and go back to listening to Bauhaus and contemplating about how “life = pain”, thank you.

  25. This was done decades ago by Harold Edgerton, who not only did amazing things with high speed cameras, but he created the strobe light. He created this which can be seen as it is in the video with the human eye.

  26. It does not matter in the least who came up with idea first. This an execution of it with style and grace. It sounds like this was done by someone in their spare time and produced an impressive product. Therefor, I say this project is extremely impressive.

  27. [sarcasm]
    Yeah, so like, all the things you’ve seen, I’ve seen them 20 years ago and I know the guy who originally invented them. So, like, when you think something’s cool, it’s actually not, because I’ve been telling people how not-cool it is for 20 years by that point.

    So don’t ever bother to do anything, because by the time you’ve done it, I’ll have already told people that it’s not cool, and they will all laugh at you.
    [/sarcasm]

    Seriously, people. The video was neat. Leave it at that.

  28. I join the sensible people here in admiring this thing. It’s spiffy-neat! Sure the idea’s been around forever, but so? Nobody’s done much with it before, have they? It’s all well and good to say “Hey, I saw this at a musem.” The Museum paid somebody $$$$$ to make that exhibit. This is something that you could duplicate for a few bucks and have one of your own! Totally awesome!

  29. I’ll go ahead and call it art. Beautifully rendered with wonderful music. For a little demo vid quite mezmorizing. I’ve seen strobe art before and this was as wonderful an example.

  31. Very nice. Artistic and, in the most technical sense of the word, trippy. And being painfully mechanically inept I could never build one, but then, that’s what sharper image is for.
    Thank you David Ponce, and thank you internet.

  32. Yeah, it’s like all these new bands that keep coming out, playing the guitar and drums. Old bands have been doing it for years, and I happen to have some LPs to prove it. It’s not amazing to hear a guitar played well anymore, and all bands should stop making music. Who cares if you know how to play a song on a guitar? That’s old news. Come back when you’ve invented your own musical instrument, not based on old technology. And don’t even play music, that’s old crap. I may be slightly impressed if you can create an instrument that can cure cancer, and solve all the world’s problems. But then again, I had that idea, like 10 years ago, so I won’t be too impressed. In fact, I should probably kill myself because nothing is cool anymore. Come on, all you cool kids who have already seen it all, and can probably recite all the lyrics to every song ever written, including songs whose lyrics are just a ripoff of some lyrics you already heard. But then again, don’t. I already know someone who already committed suicide because the world was such a joke. But then, you already knew that, didn’t you? You are so cool. I want to be your friend.

    Good job on the gizmo, by the way. 🙂

  33. I loved these at Quark’s Bar in Las Vegas last year for their Warp Core Breach and some other drinks. They put the glass under the “tap” and drops slowly fell into the glass, quickly filling it up. I figured they did it with strobe lights but this makes me want to make one for myself at home now.

  38. if someone sold these at around $20 or so dollars, they would make a killing. (i have no idea how much parts cost, that’s just a complete guess.)

  41. That’s fun to watch! I saw a similar device at SIGGRAPH once. It had a grid of multiple valves controlled by a computer, plus strobes. By controlling the timing of each valve, it could make pyramids and cubes out of water drops. As cool as it was, I still liked watching the needle poking the drop of water better.

  42. Who the hell cares if it was done before!
    God some of you people are tight-a** fools!
    Simple-plain fact: its a neat device and it was made from cheap, easy-to-get parts to demonstrate a cool effect of strobes.
    Yes, i’ve seen strobes many times, hell i killed the power in the house once using a strobe.

    Would you idiots be saying the same if someone built another pyramid?
    Those were done centuries ago, hell, millenia ago, those certainly arent new!
    Yet if someone build them, even if it happens to be the glass one an asian company hope to build sometime in the next few decades, it would still be cool!

    I hate idiots, i really do.

  46. AH PONCE, GLAD TO SEE YOU’RE MAKING GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME. THEY SAID YOU’D COME TO NOTHING PONCE, BUT YOU SHOWED THEM ALL WITH YOUR LITTLE MACHINE THAT ENABLES YOU TO INTERACT WITH A WATER DROPLET. WHERE WOULD WE BE WITHOUT IT? I SEE A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOU PONCE IF ONLY YOU COULD ESCAPE THE PAST.

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